The Game Plan 02.08.08: The Greatest Video Game Heroes...Ever (Part III)

Posted by James McGee on 02.08.2008

EVER!

If it seems like this series of articles has been a little Nintendo-heavy in the early goings, well, guilty as charged. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: for my generation, Nintendo is video games. Even if they didn't invent a game genre, you'd be hard-pressed to say they didn't refine it at some point in the early days. Those guys just knew how to create great games and great characters, and we're all still reaping the benefits today. A lot of "serious" and "hardcore" gamers like to turn their nose up at Nintendo's fascination with family-friendly, wiggle-centric Wii games and touchy/feely DS titles, (again, I've been as guilty of this as anybody) but I doubt we'd even be playing games today if it weren't for Nintendo, so show the proper respect.

Now, who guessed that I'm spotlighting yet another Nintendo character this week? Yup, my quest for the greatest heroes in video game history once again takes me back to the original innovators. Nintendo may be known for its adorable creations, but Metroid proves that there is more to the company than the cutesy image. Samus Aran is one of gaming's greatest characters, because she and her games defy categorization and give those serious nay-sayers something to sink their teeth into. Thanks to Ms. Pac-Man, I can't call this week's subject the first lady of video games, but she's definitely the toughest, and certainly the most influential. Plus, she has that tiny, pixilated bikini and sexy-sleek Zero Suit going for her. There's just something about a woman who can kick butt and look good doing it… I'm James McGee, and here's The Game Plan.

So far in this series, I've talked a lot about how certain characters defined and influenced games in their particular genre. Mario perfected the platformer, while the action/adventure tradition owes its continued popularity to The Legend of Zelda and its protagonist, Link. Samus is no different, but she has managed to cross the genre boundary with greater effect than perhaps any other character. The original Metroid took the precision jumping of platformers and added a much heavier combat element. So Mario jumped on some heads, maybe shot the occasional fireball? Well, Samus has a gun for an arm that can fry, freeze, or zap all of the nasty alien baddies standing in her path. Next, the explorative elements of Zelda were cranked up to 11 with Metroid's amazingly non-linear design. With the exception of later games in the Castlevania series, there really isn't anything quite like Metroid's game design. Whereas it's easy to trace platformer back to Mario and action/adventure back to Link, you have to look at a much wider range of descendents to find Metroid's influence—everything from RPGs, to survival-horror, to modern shooters. The series continues to defy simple categories, and its influence on other games does the same.


You've come a long way, baby.

But this isn't a series about great games. It's about great characters, and what really set Metroid apart from its contemporaries, and what has proven to be its most unexpectedly influential element, was Samus herself. She obviously made it okay to be a girl in the testosterone-dominated landscape of game heroes, but I'd go out on a limb and take it one step further. Samus was the first bonafide video-game bad@$$ of any gender. Mario had Luigi and, later, Toad and the Princess to help him out. Link is forever running into kindly old wizards who give him swords and whatnot. But Samus flies solo. She gets dropped into an isolated, alien world, and proceeds to lay waste to every ugly beast that dares give her a side-ways glance. The only help she has are the weapons she finds scattered about the environment—ice beams, morph balls, power-bombs, etc. She's the quintessential one-woman army—tough, resourceful, and deadly.

So, one person against a never-ending flood of bad-guys, armed with nothing but her favorite gun…am I the only one who thinks that description of Miss Aran sounds exactly like 99% of all the action heroes snarling their way through video games today? When she finally jumped into the 3D era, a lot of fans were horrified to learn that Metroid Prime was going to be a first-person-shooter. But once you saw it in action, you realized just how perfectly it matched the character. There has always been a sense of loneliness surrounding Samus, and the Prime cycle has really managed to enhance that feeling of isolation by letting players literally experience everything through her eyes. The FPS has always been about immersion and stacking the odds against you…qualities that have defined the Metroid series from the very beginning. Is it possible that Samus unknowingly invented the FPS all those years ago (minus the "F," naturally)? Well, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Halo, Half-Life, Quake, all the way back to Doom (Samus' arm cannon = the original "BFG")…the only thing they did was change the perspective. Samus set the standard for lone heroes gunning-down the alien horde, and no one has ever been able to do it quite as well.


Not only could Samus kick Master Chief's butt, but she does a much better job at filling out a cybernetic exo-skeleton.

In a stable of characters defined by their cute, cuddly nature, Samus Aran gives action-hungry gamers something to sink their teeth into. Metroid's unique game design is the perfect compliment to a leading lady that puts most muscle-bound action heroes running and gunning around modern games to shame. Talk about breaking the mold; Samus blew it to bits. She may seem out of place next to Mario, Link, Pokemon and Kirby…but who's going to have the guts to tell her so?

Next week, I wrap up my look at the greatest video game heroes of all time before moving on to the villains. I'm pretty confident that the character I choose for next week's column will be a big surprise to everyone, so I'll see you then.